Far Cry: A Talbott’s Cove Novel Read online

  Far Cry

  A Talbott’s Cove Novel

  Kate Canterbary

  Contents

  About Far Cry

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  An Excerpt from Hard Pressed

  An Excerpt from Fresh Catch

  Also By Kate Canterbary

  About Kate

  Acknowledgments

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Kate Canterbary

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any forms, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.

  Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner's trademark(s).

  Editing provided by Julia Ganis of Julia Edits.

  Proofreading provided by Marla Esposito of Proofing Style.

  Cover design provided by Lori Jackson of Lori Jackson Designs.

  Cover Photography by Wander Aguiar.

  Created with Vellum

  About Far Cry

  Brooke Markham needs a man. A real good man.

  But she's not looking for a keeper. She's too busy kicking ass, running an empire, and caring for her ailing father to spend time with men who want annoying things like relationships and commitment and…conversation.

  Brooke knows what she wants and it's not a future with the growly barkeep.

  JJ Harniczek needs money. A whole lot of money.

  He's determined to launch his distillery, expand his tavern, and put Talbott's Cove on the foodie tourism map. But there's no way he's asking Brooke for a dime. Not before he takes her to bed and definitely not after.

  JJ knows where he's headed and the blonde bombshell isn't about to change that.

  Not until she changes his entire world.

  For angry women.

  Chapter One

  Brooke

  Deferred Revenue: liability arising upon the prepayment for goods and services yet to be delivered.

  September

  I didn't think I'd see the day it happened. I didn't think I'd cross this line.

  But here I was, standing on my deck in the middle of a weekday, wearing the short kimono robe I'd lifted from a roommate years ago and wondering how my life was reduced to this. My hair was wet, my feet were bare. My thirty-fourth birthday lurked on the other side of today's sunset and I couldn't remember the last time I sat down to eat a meal.

  And I'd jackhammered my orgasm right out of existence.

  I never would've believed such a thing was possible if I hadn't spent the morning plowing through my toy box only to discover those toys weren't getting me where I needed to go. Again. The floor of my bedroom was littered with vibrators, some of them still buzzing away.

  I'd hoped a shower would check some boxes on both the hygiene and gratification fronts. I was as clean as any person could be after aiming a steady blast of water at her clit until her hand cramped and her fingers went numb.

  Clean and wet and crawling out of my skin.

  By my math, it added up.

  My best friend was living with her own personal Ken doll, bound to get engaged any day now, and she repeatedly rejected my suggestions of forming a sister-wife arrangement.

  My job was a remote game of Battleship that involved shifting mind-blowing sums of money around the globe with the dual purposes of making more money and upstaging every banker boy who'd called me Blondie rather than Brooke.

  My father was suffering from frontotemporal dementia and couldn't remember how to use a fork.

  My mother was six years gone (icy driveway, lights out) and I couldn't remember the last time I'd spoken to her before she died.

  I hadn't had sex—the kind that rearranged organs, made ears ring, and required a recovery protocol—since coming home two years ago to this tiny seaside village that looked like a postcard from coastal Maine and felt like a prison sentence against progress.

  And I was trying to get off in my childhood bedroom, the one still decorated in cloyingly virginal shades of rose pink and mint green.

  Even the best vibrators were no match for all that.

  It wasn't an issue of taking matters into my own hands. My hands were managing this matter—until I'd desensitized the shit out of my clit. Nothing worked for me anymore.

  That wasn't a fair statement. I couldn't say nothing worked when I hadn't tried everything. As far as buzzy buddies went, I had one in every shape, size, and horsepower. I was game for fingers, showerheads, and a rainbow of porn—but only the , respectful, tasteful, feminist stuff.

  If I could do it alone in my bedroom of childhood innocence, I'd done it.

  With the small exception of good old-fashioned sex with another person.

  I wasn't one for abstinence. Aside from my present drought, I hadn't gone more than a few weeks without since I was seventeen or eighteen. If I'd wanted to have sex, there was always a dick available for the catching. And that dick accounted for nearly half of my life.

  It was no wonder the mechanical options failed me.

  But catching some dick in Talbott's Cove, Maine was fundamentally different than doing it in my true hometown of New York City, an island designed for casual sex. Think about it: young people flocked there with the hopes of making it big, only to discover the real world was boring, cruel, and unfulfilling. Alcohol and drugs—legal and otherwise—were as common as coffee and bagels. Cabs and car services ran nonstop, making late-night visits easy and early morning escapes discreet. You had to put a concerted effort into not having sex under those conditions.

  The most dangerous consequence of casual sex in the city was running into that person at a bar—worse, a bodega without the cushion of loud music and liquor—and making the snap decision whether to ignore or acknowledge. That was it. An awkward moment. New York City was beautifully efficient in its ability to absorb good and bad and everything in between, and spit out overripened cynicism.

  Talbott's Cove offered no such mechanism.

  There was no illusion of privacy here. Everything happened out in the open, even that which occurred behind closed doors. Lies festered and secrets didn't keep. Not when your neighbors lived in your back pocket and personal business was subject to public purview.

  It wouldn't surprise me to find the demis
e of my orgasm in this week's edition of the Talbott's Cove newspaper and that was the exact reason I hadn't hoisted my dick-catching net and headed off to the area's man forest.

  I didn't need to run into my second grade teacher and the high school softball coach while they discussed my sex life over honey-dipped crullers and coffee tomorrow morning at DiLorenzo's Diner. I didn't need my mother's friends sharing shock and horror at my wanton ways at their next bridge game. There was more than enough on my plate right now, and putting out small town slut-shamey fires wasn't the side dish I was willing to order, even if I didn't know how to experience shame much in the way some people didn't notice their bad breath.

  But some things were worth an extra helping of local drama. "Fuck it," I murmured. "I need to find myself a man."

  Before I could go hunting, I had to make my way inside, throw on some clothes, and run a comb through my hair. Instead of doing any of those things, I searched my bedroom for the phone I'd abandoned in the pocket of yesterday's shorts. Keeping track of mobile devices wasn't an aptitude of mine. In New York, I'd hired an assistant with the singular responsibility of holding my phone. In Talbott's Cove, I had no such luxury. If it wasn't in my pocket or tucked under the band of my bra, I was hopeless. But I'd vowed to do better following recent events.

  Over the summer, one of Dad's home health aides texted me while I was on a video conference call with investors on four continents. She reminded me she had a personal thing and was due to leave early and other details I should've known in advance but didn't. That left me pitching my investors with my phone switched to silent and set facedown while Dad went unsupervised—for two hours. Since dementia functioned like a goody bag of jigsaw puzzle thoughts, Dad managed to get out of the house, leave the property, and walk his bathrobed ass two miles down the coastal highway while I closed a deal worth more than the state of Maine's annual operating budget.

  Since I'd earned a sweet seven figures that day—and it was obviously the right thing to do—I doubled Dad's staffing and committed to keeping my phone visible at all times. I succeeded on the visibility front for a little while. Last month, I forgot my phone downstairs, and when I went looking for it I found my father using it as a sounding block for his gavel. He remembered all of his fifty-two years on bench but not that he had a daughter. Dementia was fun like that.

  He'd cracked the screen to shards, but he had a lot of fun playing courtroom. Since there was no salvaging the device, I taped up the glass and let him keep it. His happiest, most calm moments always involved presiding over his courtroom.

  As if those reasons weren't enough to keep me connected, Annette Cortassi, my best friend and this town's only redeeming quality, messaged me throughout the day. Usually between customers at the bookstore she owned in the harborside village. Today was no exception.

  Annette: Did you ever watch that Netflix comedy special I told you about? The one where I strained a muscle laughing and couldn't pull a shirt over my head for a week because my side hurt so much?

  Annette: I swear, it was worth the pain.

  Annette: I'm going to assume by the delay in your response that you're either buying a country or dealing with some shit. Let me know when you're free and/or if I can help.

  Annette: I can't do anything with buying countries, but…

  Brooke: So long as I'm here, I'm not free.

  Annette: Oh, would you shut up?

  Brooke: You're more capable than you think. You could run a small country, no problem.

  Annette: I'm going to stick to running a small bookstore. That's challenge enough for me.

  Brooke: I don't buy countries. That's not what hedge fund management is about.

  Annette: You say that, but it doesn't clarify your job to me at all.

  Brooke: I oversee the investment and strategy of macro and long/short hedge funds with the objective of minimizing risk and maximizing profits.

  Annette: Nope, that doesn't help either.

  Brooke: People give me lots of money and I decide where to put that money to turn it into more money, and for my trouble, I keep a lot of that money.

  Annette: That's a little better.

  Annette: Let's talk about you now, Miss Brooke.

  Brooke: We are talking about me. This entire conversation has been about me.

  Annette: Any chance you're excited about your birthday weekend?

  Brooke: That really depends on whether I have to acknowledge that I'm older.

  Annette: You do not.

  Annette: Once you hit 30, you don't have to acknowledge each individual year. You're a woman in your 30s and everyone knows better than to ask for specifics.

  Brooke: It's not that I have an issue with this year. I just don't like the look of 34. It's obnoxious. I mean, 32 was cute. That was a cute year. Everyone is cool with 32. But 34 is that awkward phase after the early 30s and sliding into the mid 30s. It's not cute anymore. It's a nightly serum regimen and a living will.

  Annette: I remember being young and my parents throwing a 40th birthday party for one of my uncles. It was over-the-hill themed. All black. A tombstone cake.

  Annette: And here I am, 34 now, wondering what the fuck that was about.

  Brooke: I could be wrong, but I think you'd light things on fire if anyone threw you an over-the-hill party, ever. Even if you were 95.

  Annette: You're right. I would burn it down.

  Brooke: I'd help.

  Annette: But I don't mind gaining some pearls of wisdom as I age.

  Brooke: Those pearls of wisdom are from me. They have nothing to do with age. It's who you know.

  Annette: And aren't I lucky to know you?

  Brooke: The best thing about being over 30 is blow jobs.

  Annette: I'm going to need you to unbox that one, honey.

  Brooke: No blow jobs after 30.

  Annette: …okay. I'm trying to follow you, but I'm not sure I am.

  Brooke: I haven't given a blow job since I was 29.

  Annette: I gather you're pleased with this?

  Brooke: Don't pretend you like the feel of fuzzy balls on your chin or having that dick taste in your throat.

  Annette: I'll say this. I enjoy reciprocity.

  Brooke: Oh my god, stop it.

  Annette: Stop what? It's only fair.

  Brooke: And what do you do, darling deep throat, with all the jizz? Because that's a riddle I've never solved.

  Annette: Are you asking me this literally or…?

  Brooke: Swallowing isn't an option. I can't. I won't. That means I have to duck out of the way before he goes off like the Bellagio fountains or offer up my skin for the Jackson Pollock treatment. And you know what happens after that? On the off chance he's a considerate guy, I get to wait with a puddle of human fluids on my chest while he finishes with the convulsions and heavy breathing to fetch a washcloth. Entire minutes of my life go by while I'm marinating like tonight's pork loin.

  Annette: You're so special.

  Brooke: You go right ahead and enjoy your reciprocity.

  Annette: I'll ask one more time. Are you ready for your birthday weekend? Because I have plans, lady. PLANS.

  Brooke: If you're asking whether I'm ready to dance like I'm working hard for the money, then yes.

  Brooke: I reserve the right to slap you if there's cake and singing involved.

  Annette: So…that means we won't be going to that place we like, the one that isn't a karaoke bar but they still have the equipment and they always let us go to town on Britney and Christina songs?

  Brooke: I did not say that. I don't want anyone singing AT me. There is a difference.

  Annette: Mmhmm and the cake? I was under the impression you required a yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, but it sounds like that's canceled too?

  Brooke: I don't mind cake. I just don't want someone to walk up with a cake and put it in front of me while everyone stares.

  Brooke: That shit is fucking awkward.

  Annette: Right, right, rig
ht. Let me see if I have this straight. You want singing, but not at you. You want cake, but you don't want anyone presenting it to you. Is that correct?

  Brooke: Mostly.

  Annette: Ah. All right. I'll see what I can do about meeting these specifications, then.

  Brooke: You're implying that I'm super high maintenance and I'd like to point out that while it's true, it's also very strange that modern tradition requires people to sit in front of flaming baked goods while others sing.

  Annette: Sure, honey. Whatever you want. I'll just hide the cake and leave you to find it alone, without anyone watching or singing.

  Brooke: Now you're just being absurd.

  Annette: I'm absurd. Sure.

  Brooke: I never should've told you my birth date.

  Annette: Yes, you should have. You just don't want to be the center of attention in ways you can't control.

  Brooke: Well…shit.

  Brooke: I don't know how much of Annette Unfucks My Life I can handle today.